As foot soldiers and officers, we stand surveying the battlefield. Through no fault of our own, we seem to have lost the fight for reputation.

Our successful campaigns lie strewn in the mud, some effective in their time but forgotten now. The war around us has moved on, focusing on changing how residents relate to us and the relationship we have with them.

A couple of weeks ago, I went to the rather brilliant, interesting and super helpful LG Communications Social Media session, organised by Darren Caveney, that was held at the hugely creative Antennae Centre in Nottingham.

Billed as ‘Everything you wanted to know about social media but were too afraid to ask’, it combined an immense list of speakers including David Banks [Media Law Specialist], Dan Slee, Paul Taylor, Sarah Lay and Richard Clarke from O2 with an equally inspiring un-conference session led by the Wikipedia legend Andy Mabbett.

‘Harder than you think’ was the iconic song used by Channel 4 for its ‘Meet the Superhumans’ campaign for the Paralympics. Now, that was a truly outstanding bit of marketing. Yes, they had huge budgets and yes, they had blanket TV coverage, the like of which we in local government can only dream of. But fundamentally, some bright spark had the creative vision to identify the people taking part in the Paralympics as super-human, rather than defined by their disability, and to use a song with the line ‘Thank you for letting us be ourselves’.

I recently met up with Darren Caveney for a catch up. When we were talking about communications, social media, awards and other such things, he asked me when it was I first came to Walsall to meet him and Dan Slee.

It got me thinking and I realised it’s been just over a year since I started on my social media journey. I know that because I begrudgingly wrote about it here after Dan and Darren persuaded me to give it a go.

Future Leaders, now in its second year, is giving talented public sector comms people the chance to expand their leadership skills. In the days of zero training budgets this is a timely initiative by LGcomms.

Who sets your comms priorities? Your councillors, your boss, your residents? I imagine that, in most local government organisations, it is a bit of all three. That’s fair enough (to an extent), but a lack of focus on residents and their issues, in the right proportions, could mean a lot of our efforts go to waste.

I’ve always used Twitter primarily for work. It helps me to get ideas, find out news, meet new people and speak with like minded people often doing similar jobs across the UK and beyond. But a crossoveras to who’s using it seems to be taking place. Sorry to all those who already knew this but it seems to me that Twitter has become the new Facebook for teenagers. And I find that fascinating.

Across the country, local government is all under the same strain – to save money and improve services. Some of the action taken has seen traditional salami slicing and others have taken a more radical approach.

And as a result more councils are deciding to commission services, moving away from traditional provision for obvious reasons.

In Staffordshire, we’ve put in place a new way of working - one which is focussed on commissioning the right service in the right place at the right time.

So what are the implications for communications?

Everyone knows higher resident satisfaction directly links to feeling informed. Knowing what services are on offer, what the council is doing for me and making sure you’re giving me value for money are the reasons quoted when residents say what helps them to feel informed.

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